Ideology and Its Ethics: Maria Dąbrowska’s Jewish (and Polish) Problem

This article is part of a project that examines Polish writers’ diaristic responses to the Warsaw ghetto and to the Holocaust in general. Rachel Feldhay Brenner examines Maria Dąbrowska’s response in the context of her prewar attitude to Polish Jews, which was shaped by her nationalistic ideology of Poland’s messianic position among the nations. Although Dąbrowska publicly denounced Endecja and its antisemitism, in private she cultivated a powerful sense of ressentiment toward the Jews, seeing Jews as outsiders who stood in the way of Poland realizing its special mission. This attitude persisted during the Holocaust and explains Dąbrowska’s emotional disengagement in the face of Jewish extermination. In the postwar years, her resentment became more pronounced, as even Jewish suffering in the Holocaust became an object of competition and envy. Dąbrowska’s response to the Holocaust offers a poignant example of the impact of ideological beliefs on emotional and ethical aspects of human interaction.